The present invention relates to a vehicle braking force control device that performs antilock brake control of a brake device.
Conventionally, vehicle braking force control devices that control the hydraulic pressure of brake fluid supplied to a brake device to perform antilock brake control of the brake device have been known. This type of vehicle braking force control device has performed antilock brake control at a time when it has detected wheel slip.
In a vehicle in which a vehicle braking force control device is installed, a braking force resulting from engine braking acts in addition to the braking force resulting from the brake device. In cases where the braking force resulting from engine braking acts, like at times when the brake device has been actuated, the load of the vehicle body moves to the front wheel side, whereby the load on the rear wheel ends up decreasing and the rear wheel ends up in a state where it easily slips. For this reason, for example, in rear-wheel drive automobiles and motorcycles, in a case where the rear wheel has slipped due to engine braking during cornering, the vehicle braking force control device has resumed the supply of fuel to the engine to decrease the braking force resulting from engine braking. This leaves the driver unable to obtain the feeling of deceleration that the driver expects, so a vehicle braking force control device that controls the braking force of the front wheel in accordance with the slip state of the rear wheel has been proposed (e.g., JP-A-9-267733).
However, in the above-described conventional vehicle braking force control device, at a time when engine braking resulting from a downshift or the like acts and the drive wheel has entered a slip state, for example, antilock brake control intervenes even without the brake device being caused to perform braking. Even if the driver causes the brake device to perform braking in this state, braking by the brake device has become slow or it has been difficult for the brake device to perform braking due to the intervention of antilock brake control. For this reason, when a large braking force resulting from engine braking is generated, it has been difficult to cause the brake device to perform braking as envisioned by the driver.